Going beyond the original size (and why you should avoid it) The result after upscaling both versions to their original size. To do that, I need to increase both the Width and Height values from 100% to 500%: We'll start by scaling the Width and Height from 10% up to 50% of the original size. Let's see what happens if we scale the image back up. Upscaling the image to 50% of its original size It's saying we're at 100% of the new size, meaning whatever pixels are left after we scaled it down. So when Photoshop is telling us now that the Width and Height are back to 100%, it's not saying we're back to 100% of the original size. This means we're down to just 1 out of every 100 pixels that we had before, or just 1 percent of the original image. In this case, it took 90% of the pixels from the width, and 90% of the pixels from the height, and just deleted them. If we can clearly see that the image is much smaller now than it was before, how can the Width and Height be back to 100 percent? The reason is that, when we scaled the pixel version and made it smaller, Photoshop made it smaller by throwing pixels away. The Width and Height values of the pixel version are back to 100 percent. I'll use this image that I downloaded from Adobe Stock: To follow along, you can open any image in Photoshop. If you just want to skip to the actual comparison, you can jump ahead to the Resizing Images vs Smart Objects section below. To see the advantage of resizing an image as a smart object, let's quickly set up our document so we can view a side-by-side comparison between resizing a normal image and resizing a smart object. Let's get started!Дownload this tutorial as a print-ready PDF! Setting up a side-by-side comparison I'll be using Photoshop CC but since smart objects were first introduced way back in Photoshop CS2, any version from CS2 and up will work. In fact, no matter how many times we resize a smart object, the image always looks crisp and sharp. This means that if we need to make the image larger again, we can do so without any loss in quality.

The image inside it always remains at its original size with all of its pixels and detail intact. But all we've really done is scaled the smart object. If we scale a smart object to make it smaller, it looks like we've scaled the image. Anything we do to a smart object is done to the smart object itself, not to the image. A smart object is a container that holds the image inside it and protects the image from harm. And depending on how much bigger you make it, you can end up with a blocky or blurry mess.Д«ut smart objects in Photoshop are different.

All it can do is take the remaining detail and make it bigger. That's because, by throwing away pixels, we lost detail in the image, and Photoshop can't magically recreate detail that's no longer there. Later on, if we try to scale the image larger, or even back to its original size, the result doesn't look as good.

This is known as a destructive edit because it makes a permanent change to the original image. And once those pixels are gone, there's no way to get them back. Normally when we scale an image to make it smaller, Photoshop makes it smaller by throwing away pixels. Smart objects offer many advantages, but one of the biggest is that they allow us to resize images non-destructively.

Resize image in photoshop